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spk06: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ellington Financial Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, all participants have been placed in listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If at any time your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. Lastly, if you should require operator assistance, please press star 0. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Tara Byrne. You may begin.
spk00: Thank you. Before we start, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during this conference call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are not historical in nature. As described under part one, item 1A of our annual report on Form 10-K, and part two, item 1A of our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31st, 2023, Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results to differ from its beliefs, expectations, estimates, and projections. Consequently, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Statements made during this conference call are made as of the date of this call, and the company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. I am joined on the call today by Larry Penn, Chief Executive Officer of Ellington Financial, Mark Tchaikovsky, Co-Chief Investment Officer of EFC, and J.R. Herlihy, Chief Financial Officer of EFC. As described in our earnings press release, our second quarter earnings conference call presentation is available on our website, ellingtonfinancial.com. Management's prepared remarks will track the presentation. Please note that any references to figures in the presentation are qualified in their entirety by the end notes at the back of the presentation. With that, I will now turn the call over to Larry.
spk05: Thank you, Tara, and good morning, everyone. As always, thank you for your time and interest in Ellington Financial. I'll begin on slide three of the presentation. For the second quarter, we reported net income of $0.04 per share and adjusted distributable earnings of $0.38 per share. Steady performance from our non-QM, residential transition loan, and commercial mortgage bridge loan portfolios, combined with notably strong performance from our credit risk transfer investments, offset net losses elsewhere in the portfolio, and Ellington Financial generated a modestly positive economic return overall. You can see on slide three that the credit strategy was the primary driver of our quarterly results, contributing 40 cents per share of net income. while agency generated $0.06 per share on a relatively small capital allocation, and Longbridge contributed a positive $0.04 per share, even as wider HECM yield spreads compressed gain-on-sale margins and weighed-on results. The lower margins at Longbridge were also the primary driver of the sequential decline in EFC's overall adjusted distributable earnings. HECM margins recovered somewhat in July, however, and notably, shortly after quarter end, Longbridge was able to acquire a reverse mortgage servicing portfolio out of a bankruptcy proceeding at a distressed price, which we expect will be immediately accretive to EFC's earnings and adjusted attributable earnings going forward. The net interest margins for both credit and agency also ticked up sequentially, as higher book asset yields due to portfolio rotation exceeded higher borrowing costs. Higher NIMS should, of course, be supportive of ADE going forward as well. Also during the second quarter, we signed definitive agreements for strategic acquisitions of two public mortgage REITs, Arlington Asset Investment Corp and Great Ajax Corp. Each of these transactions will add assets that complement and further diversify Ellington Financial's existing investment strategies, align with our expertise, and offer other strategic advantages. With Arlington, we pick up a portfolio of low-coupon mortgage servicing rights at scale. These MSRs benefit in a rising interest rate environment, and so they provide an earnings profile that should function as a natural hedge to many of Ellington Financial's existing investments. And with Great Ajax, we substantially grow our RPL and PL strategy by adding a portfolio of over $1 billion of first lien residential loans, also at scale and with limited credit risk by virtue of their low LTVs. This RPL and PL portfolio includes both loans owned directly on balance sheet, and loans financed via securitizations. These transactions also provide other important benefits to Arlington Financial. With Arlington, we will assume more than $100 million of term, non-mark-to-market unsecured debt and perpetual preferred stock, both with attractive costs of capital. And with Great Ajax, we will acquire a strategic equity investment in Gregory Funding, LLC, Great Ajax's highly respected affiliated mortgage loan servicer, which could unlock multiple synergies and operating efficiencies across Ellington Financial's existing investment portfolio. In addition to these benefits, the acquisition should provide additional capital, both upfront and over time, to deploy into Ellington Financial's existing investment strategies at the highly attractive yield spreads available in the market. You can find additional information about these transactions in the presentation section of the Ellington Financial website. Moving back to Ellington Financial's portfolio, we took several other steps during the quarter that should position us to drive earnings while continuing to navigate market volatility. With agency yield spread still wide on historical basis, we grew that portfolio by 8% in the second quarter after shrinking it significantly in prior quarters. We also took advantage of an attractive entry point to add credit risk transfer investments early in the quarter before the spread tightening in that sector in June and July. and continued to expand our portfolio of high-yielding residential transition loans and proprietary reverse mortgage loans. Similar to the prior three quarters, the size of our commercial bridge loan portfolio again declined in the second quarter as payoffs and principal paydowns significantly exceeded new originations. In addition, loans on multifamily continued to represent the majority of our commercial bridge portfolio. In non-QM, the bid from whole loan buyers, particularly insurance companies, continues to be relatively strong. As a result, we were able this past quarter to get good execution on one of our non-QM pools via an outright whole loan sale, and we now regularly consider whole loan sales as an alternative to securitization. Similarly, our originator affiliates, Lensure and American Heritage, have recently been selling more of their production to third-party whole loan buyers. Not surprisingly, given how high mortgage rates have been, new originations in the non-QM sector continue to be very low compared to last year. As a result, our non-QM whole loan portfolio remains relatively small, finishing the quarter at $446 million, which is a more than 40% year-over-year decline. Of course, other segments of our loan portfolio, especially residential transition loans, have taken up the slack. And if spreads widen or securitization spreads continue to tighten, our non-crime portfolio should have plenty of room to regrow. Our loan portfolios continue to benefit from their short duration and strong overall credit performance. We continue to dynamically adjust our interest rate and credit hedges. And this past quarter, that also included establishing new hedges related to those pending public MREIT acquisitions. In fact, it was the addition of interest rate hedges related to those pending acquisitions that explains why our interest rate sensitivity table which you'll find on slide 14 of the presentation, all of a sudden shows a modest negative duration. Meanwhile, and as usual, we have maintained high levels of liquidity and additional borrowing capacity. We ended the quarter with a recourse debt to equity ratio of 2.1 to 1, which is still towards the lower end of our historical levels. As you can see back on slide three, our cash and unencumbered asset levels reflect that we have substantial dry powder to invest. In particular, our commercial mortgage loan portfolio is as small as it's been in a while. And with the distress that we and others expect to hit the commercial real estate sector, I wouldn't be surprised if we ultimately deploy a lot of that dry powder in non-performing commercial mortgage loans. Finally, we look forward to closing the Arlington and Great Ajax acquisitions later this year, which will add meaningfully to our capital base. With that, I'll turn it over to JR to discuss our second quarter financial results in more detail.
spk04: Thanks, Larry, and good morning, everyone. For the second quarter, we reported net income of $0.04 per share on a fully mark-to-market basis and adjusted distributable earnings of $0.38 per share. These results compare to net income of $0.58 per share and ADE of $0.45 per share for the prior quarter. On slide five, you can see the attribution of earnings between credit, agency, and Longbridge. The credit strategy generated 40 cents per share of net income, driven by net interest income on our loan portfolios, net gains on our CRT portfolio, and net gains on our interest rate hedges. A portion of these gains were offset by negative results in our investments in unconsolidated entities, including net losses on equity investments in loan originators and commercial mortgage loan-related entities, as well as net realized and unrealized losses on our consumer loans and credit hedges. Finally, although we have seen an uptick in delinquencies in these portfolios year-to-date, our residential and commercial mortgage loan portfolios continue to experience low levels of credit losses and strong overall credit performance. In fact, several classes of our non-QM securitizations were upgraded by FISH in May. According to Bank of America research from June, among the 17 issuers with five or more deals outstanding, our EFMT non-QM shelf is tied for the lowest reported 30-plus day delinquencies. Since 2017, we've done 14 EFMT securitizations and currently have 11 deals outstanding, encompassing approximately 5,800 loans and $2.5 billion of UPV. And remarkably, despite the large size of that portfolio, those deals have experienced no cumulative losses life to date. Meanwhile, Our agency portfolio generated net income of $0.06 per share for the second quarter. The quarter began with elevated interest rate volatility and widening agency MBS yield spreads as the market prepared for sales by the FDIC of MBS from failed regional banks. Later in the quarter, with the FDIC sales well absorbed and with the debt ceiling dispute resolved, volatility declined and agency MBS yield spreads tightened. Accordingly, We experienced moderate losses in April, but these were reversed in May and June, and on balance, we had positive net income for the quarter in the agency strategy. Finally, Longbridge contributed $0.04 per share of net income in the quarter. Longbridge's positive results were driven by net gains related to the resolutions of HECM buyout loans, net gains on proprietary reverse mortgage loans, and net gains on interest rate hedges. These gains were partially offset by net losses on the HMBS MSR equivalent, which was driven by the combination of higher interest rates and wider yield spreads in the HECM market during the quarter, and a net loss in originations, as reduced gain on sale margins on HECM loans more than offset an increase in overall origination volumes. EFC's net income for the second quarter also reflected expenses related to the Arlington and Great Ajax transactions, as well as net losses driven by higher interest rates on the interest rate swaps we use to hedge our preferred equity and unsecured long-term debt. On slide 6, you can see a breakout of ADE among the investment portfolio, long bridge, and corporate overhead. Next, please flip to slide 7. In the second quarter, our total long credit portfolio increased by 1% sequentially to $2.45 billion as of June 30th. The slight increase was driven by moderately larger non-QM and RTL loan portfolios quarter-over-quarter and by net purchases of CRT investments, which occurred primarily in May. A portion of the increase was offset by a smaller commercial bridge loan portfolio, where loan paydowns significantly exceeded new originations. For the RTL, commercial bridge, and consumer loan portfolios in total, we received principal paydowns of $349 million during the second quarter, which represented 22% of the combined fair value of those portfolios coming into the quarter. On the next slide, slide eight, you can see that our total long agency RMBS portfolio increased by 8% quarter-over-quarter to $918 million, as we opportunistically added specified pools during the quarter. On slide nine, you can see that our LongBridge portfolio decreased by 3% to $430 million as of June 30th. The decrease was driven primarily by the success LongBridge had during the quarter resolving HECM buyout loans, most of which were acquired in the transaction that closed in March. This decline was partially offset by originations of prop reverse mortgage loans. In the second quarter, Longbridge originated $297 million across HECM and Prop, which was up 27% quarter-over-quarter. The share of originations through Longbridge's wholesale and correspondent channels increased incrementally to 79% from 77%, while retail declined to 21% from 23%. Next, please turn to slide 10 for a summary of our borrowings. The top of this slide now shows the costs related to our recourse borrowings only. On our recourse borrowings, the weighted average borrowing rate increased by 29 basis points to 6.67% as of June 30th, driven by the increase in short-term interest rates. Book asset yields for both our credit and agency strategies also increased during the quarter, thanks to portfolio turnover, and we continue to benefit from positive carry on our interest rate swap hedges, where we overall receive a higher floating rate and pay a lower fixed rate. As a result, Net interest margins in both our credit and agency strategies expanded sequentially. Our recourse debt-to-equity ratio, adjusted for unsettled purchases and sales, remained low at 2.1 to 1 as of June 30th compared to 2 to 1 as of March 31st. Our overall debt-to-equity ratio, again adjusted for unsettled purchases and sales, increased incrementally to 9.2 to 1 as of June 30th as compared to 8.9 to 1 as of March 31st. Finally, at June 30th, our combined cash and unencumbered assets totaled approximately $538 million, and our book value for common share was $14.70, down from $15.10 in the prior quarter. Including the $0.45 per share of common dividends that we declared during the quarter, our total economic return was 30 basis points for the second quarter. Now, over to Mark.
spk02: Thanks, J.R., EFC had a slightly positive return in a very volatile quarter. There was volatility in both the absolute level of rates, as the five-year note moved in an 86 basis point range, and in the slope of the yield curve, as the slope of the two-year versus 10-year moved in a 65 basis point range. That is a huge range and reflects a market oscillating between fear of more bank failures and fear of persistent inflation. Credit spreads also saw a lot of volatility. with the on-the-run investment grade index moving in a 17 basis point range. While it wasn't a memorable quarter for returns, we were busy at Ellington Financial with two announced public MREIT acquisitions and some new opportunities materializing that can help to drive future returns. Despite growing market consensus that the Federal Reserve is either at or very near the end of its hiking cycle, the heightened levels of interest rate volatility that characterized the market in 2022 have persisted in 2023, including into the third quarter. Larry mentioned that we kept our interest rate hedging discipline across all portfolios, and I think that is very important to preserve book value. As you can see from slide seven, the credit portfolio was remarkably stable in size. Most categories did not move much, although we did opportunistically add CRT at some very wide spreads. By late last year, we identified some specific sectors within CRT as potentially offering above-market returns. The 2020 and 2021 vintage Fannie Freddie production that backed these bonds have had both tremendous HPA as well as very fast prepayment speeds until mid-last year, both of which have helped to substantially de-risk the bonds. Additionally, unlike floating-rate borrowers that are being strained by increasing debt service costs, these borrowers have locked in 30 years of very low fixed-rate payments. and now wage grains are driving their debt to income ratios even lower. Combine this with a large GSE bond tendering program this year, and you have a combination of great fundamentals and great technicals, which has driven strong total returns. This is a good example of the breadth of Ellington's investment expertise and the flexibility of our mandate, helping to drive EFC's total return. On slide eight, you can see the larger agency portfolio is discussed, and on slide nine, you can see that through LongBridge, we added private label reverse, which we view as an exciting and growing part of the reverse mortgage market. On slide 19, you can see that our credit hedges grew substantially in the quarter. We added protection as index spreads tightened, both for those pending public MRE acquisitions and as a spread hedge for non-QM and agency. In terms of portfolio performance in the quarter, our RTL portfolio continues to chug along, generating substantial net interest income. One area of focus for us is working through our second quarter 2022 vintage loans, which were originated at the top of the housing market. Some of these loans have extended their maturity because it has taken longer for the borrower to sell the property than they expected. But we ultimately expect credit performance to be strong for these loans, given the LTVs that we underwrote to. For newer vintages, including loans originated Q4 2022, and Q1 2023, we are seeing strong, albeit still early, performance. Despite affordability challenges, home prices stabilized early this year and have been edging higher. Meanwhile, our commercial bridge loan portfolio continued to pay down, and we're starting to see some more interesting opportunities in that sector. A lot has been written about the pullback of regional banks from lending, and the recent Fed Commission's sluice report confirms that's happening in real time. This is all great for Ellington Financial. We're seeing some high-quality deals come to us that historically would have gone to regional banks. Also, the substantial cash flow stress in part of the commercial mortgage market is presenting us with more distressed and NPL opportunities. Those are exactly the kind of investments that were the bread and butter of our commercial mortgage strategy when we started it over a decade ago. Sheridan Capital, our commercial mortgage loan originator and servicing partner, is has been a great relationship for us so far, and I expect them to be highly strategic for EFC going forward. Not only are they generating operating profits now, but their expertise in construction, renovation, and property management further broadens EFC's own capabilities and expands the net in terms of what types of opportunities we can pursue. Our portfolio of non-crim loans and retained tranches also performed well in the quarter. As Larry mentioned, that sector has attracted strong demand from insurance companies, which has helped solidify spreads, both for whole loan sales and securitizations. Loan sales and securitizations are now both viable and profitable exit strategies and provide some healthy competition for each other. That's true for both EFC portfolio loans as well as production from our originator affiliates. For EFC, our non-current portfolio has shrunk substantially since the second half of last year, when prices were quite depressed. Now, with securitization spreads tighter and liquidity improved, we see a substantial opportunity to grow the portfolio again moving forward. Our non-agency RMBS portfolio also had a strong quarter, led by CRT. We tend to increase allocations to non-agency RMBS when securities are cheap loans, and we have seen this dynamic a few times in the past nine months. We constantly think about the relative value merits of loans versus securities and pivoting some incremental capital between these two sectors is a great way to add excess return. For our loan originator affiliates, it looks like the worst may be behind us. Loan prices are creeping up and while the volume is still well below 2021 levels, it has been stable and in some cases growing. In agency MBS, we are modestly profitable for the quarter. There were some moments of very wide spreads in the quarter which we used to grow that portfolio. It's almost unimaginable how the opportunity set in that space has been recharged. Fannie 6 snaps closed in July at a lower price than where Fannie 2s traded just two years earlier. The forward curve is telling us that the Fed is probably nearing the end of its hiking cycle, so some of the tail risk is probably taken out of the market, but rate volatility has yet to subside. Looking ahead, many sectors in our portfolio have very high unlevered asset yields, including RTL, commercial mortgage bridge, and non-crim loans, which gives strong support to our ADE and our dividend. These yields are a tailwind to be sure, but there are headwinds too. Origination volumes are low and competition in many asset classes, especially from insurance companies, is fierce. We have a lot of work ahead to complete the Arlington and Great Ajax acquisitions, but when we do, the incremental capital and strategic investments should only enhance our ability to to take advantage of a broad range of investment strategies. Now, back to Larry. Thanks, Mark.
spk05: I am pleased with Ellington Financial's performance so far this year in what continues to be a fluid market. Despite the interest rate volatility, a regional banking crisis, and a difficult origination environment, EFC generated an annualized economic return of 7.4 percent through the first six months of 2023. I think we're in a good position to grow adjusted distributable earnings going forward, with wider net interest margins, both in credit and in agency, and at Longbridge as well, with improving HECM gain on sale margins and that recent distressed MSR purchase. And as Mark highlighted, we're benefiting from reduced competition from banks in our lending businesses, which could be another catalyst for strong, long-term risk-adjusted returns. Of course, the pending acquisitions of Arlington and Great Ajax represent important milestones for Arlington Financial. Each of these transactions will add strategic assets that complement and further diversify Ellington Financial's existing investment strategies and align with our expertise. And by significantly increasing our scale and bringing us a substantial additional group of shareholders, these transactions should enhance the liquidity of our common stock while lowering our operating expense ratios to boot. We project that each of these transactions will be accretive to our earnings within the coming year. We expect to close both transactions before the end of 2023, at which time EFC's equity base should exceed $1.7 billion. That would be around double our equity base at the end of 2019, right before COVID, no less. It is clearly a time of consolidation in the mortgage REIT space, and Ellington Financial's strong balance sheet and track record of steady returns have enabled us to be an attractive partner in these two transactions. When you consider the accretive impact to earnings that we are expecting from these M&A transactions, the benefits of increased scale, and the drive pattern we have available for the attractive opportunities set in front of us, it is definitely an exciting time for Arlington Financial. Finally, I'd like to close by addressing existing Arlington and Great Ajax shareholders. We hope you agree that these pending transactions should be highly attractive and accretive for you as well. We look forward to introducing ourselves and our company to you and we sincerely hope that your ownership continues. With that, we'll now open the call up to questions. Operator?
spk06: At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If at any time your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. Again, to ask a question, please press star 1. Our first question comes from Bose George with KBW. Please go ahead.
spk07: Hey, everyone. Good morning. Actually, I was trying to figure out just the impact of the pending acquisition. So I guess it was like the $3.6 million of expenses related to the acquisition. And how much was the financial impact of the hedges that were in place ahead of the deal closing?
spk05: Sorry, you mean the deals having closed? You mean had at... at quarter end, I guess, maybe?
spk07: Yeah, actually, I think the comment that you made that you had some interest rate hedges on, I guess, in anticipation of the deals closing, is that right? Yes, that's right. So I'm just curious what the impact, was there a financial impact related to that that was also running through earnings this quarter?
spk04: Yeah, for Q2, the impact of those Hedges were not material. We're very small. And you got it. And the $3.6 million is the right number of expenses that we put through related to the transactions in the second quarter.
spk07: Okay. And then for the second half of the year or just before the deal, until the deal closes, is there much in terms of transaction expenses or is this kind of the bulk of it?
spk04: There are. You know, the banker fees are success-based, right? That's right. And then... then otherwise the expenses are taken as incurred, so we still have more legal work to do between now and then. So those are the primary components.
spk07: Okay. And then just on the MSR, the distressed reverse MSR you acquired, how much capital did that entail?
spk05: Negligible.
spk07: It was pretty small. Okay. And then just one on excess capital. How would you characterize your dry powder? Are you keeping some excess also ahead of the acquisitions?
spk04: Sure. So we had cash of 195, which is about 15% of our NAV. So we keep 10% to 15% typically. Other encumbered assets of $340 million. And leverage on agency was about six times. So, between those two categories, we could probably add. In 2022, we were a range of 2.3 to 2.7 times recourse debt equity. 2019, we were 2.6 to 9. 2019, granted a larger allocation. of capital to agency. But from our 2.1 today, you know, we could, I think, pretty comfortably get into the two and a half area just based on what's unencumbered and additional borrowing capacity on assets that are financed.
spk07: Okay, great. Thank you.
spk06: Thank you, Frank. Thank you. We'll take our next question from Crispin Love with Piper Sandler.
spk03: Thanks. I appreciate you taking my questions. In the release and on the call, you mentioned credit strength and low levels of losses, but a pickup in delinquencies. I'm just curious if you could expand on that a little bit. What levels of delinquencies are you seeing, and are they primarily in the commercial portfolios and RTL, or are there any other areas worth calling out?
spk04: Sure. So it's really the RTL and commercial bridge where we're seeing upticks. And I know, Mark, if you want to speak qualitative to those, I mean, they're still, I think, small in the scheme of things, and certainly the credit losses are small. The queue tomorrow will flush out those precise numbers. But I don't know, Mark, if you want to talk about the trends, especially that we're seeing in RTL, which I think you got into a bit in your prepared remarks, but maybe expand on that theme.
spk02: Yep. Hey, Crispin. So I mentioned in my comments that the second quarter of 2022 for most areas represented the peak in home prices, and then they sort of drifted lower second half of last year, and now they've been gradually increasing, I believe, the last three or four months, the most recent three or four months of this year. So what happens is The construction partners that we lent money to that bought homes in the second quarter of 2022, when they went to sell the properties, it was taking them a little bit longer to sell the properties than we have historically seen. So we have a model informed by historical data that looks at a lot of different features, how complex the renovation is and geography and all that stuff. And we could see the second quarter 2022, the houses were on the market for a little bit longer. It also took them a little bit longer to finish the renovation. So we're working through that. You know, it's been a focus. Everything's going pretty well. And what you see now is home prices sort of stabilized, now started to tick back up a little bit. that trend, we don't see that trend anymore. So now sort of the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023, those resolutions are coming at sort of exactly the rate that we would have predicted. So I don't think it's really going to be a performance issue. I just think it's going to be a little bit of a timeline extension. And, you know, there are extension fees, and so there's sort of economics that can accrue to a company when the loans do extend. But I just wanted to mention it because it's just, you know, it was a trend that we had been focusing on for the last few months and something we've been working through.
spk03: Thanks, Mark and Jared. Appreciate all the color there. And just one last one from me. Mark, can you Talk a little bit about the distress MPL opportunities you're seeing in the market. Sounds like you've begun to see some opportunities, so curious if you've bought any yet, and what are the key areas in Cree where you expect the majority of these MPL opportunities over the next several quarters?
spk02: So, yeah, no, that's a great question. They're coming in two flavors, right? So the first flavor is you're seeing in the CMBS market, so commercial mortgage-backed securities, not loans, you're seeing in CMBS, you know, tranches that had been previously investment grade and came to market as investment grade, traded, you know, relatively tight spread, say, you know, inside, you know, 150, 170 to the curve where they were priced, you know, when those markets came to market. Some of those prices now are down substantially, so sub-$50 price. Some of them are single-asset, single-borrower deals. Some are more just conduit deals where the amount of delinquency is high relative to the enhancement levels. So the market is pricing in a recovery less than par. And I'd say, you know, in the past month or so, we've seen a pickup in that. So that's exciting for us. Now, the other area is going to be just delinquent mortgage loans. And that used to be pretty much the main thing we did in our commercial strategy going back 2010, 2011, uh, then it, you know, that opportunity dried up. There was a great opportunity in bridge origination. We pivoted, but now we're seeing that, um, opportunity. We think it's going to come back on, um, non-performing commercial loans. And it's obviously been, you know, some of these, uh, bank takeovers by the FTC is going to add some volume, but away from that, we've, um, seen some opportunities where you're buying loans at substantial discounts to par, right? And that I would characterize, you know, below 75 cents on the dollar. And it's really more of a real estate play as opposed to just, you know, you're putting out capital to earn your coupon, right? And so that is early stages. Look, you know, we mentioned that sluice that senior loan officer opinion survey, right? That banks are probably going to be, depending on the size, probably going to be in an environment where they're going to have more capital requirements. They're probably going to have more regulatory scrutiny upon some of the commercial activities and delinquent loans. And so we think that there are going to be loans that come to maturity where... the new loan is going to have to be smaller in size than the old loan, and that's sort of the catalyst for opportunity. Either a bank might want to sell a loan at a discount, or you're going to need a partner to come and inject some capital. So it's early stages, but we think that that's going to be a big, persistent opportunity, and it's an opportunity set that requires a very specific set of expertise on a part of a manager. And we have a lot of resources that have a lot of experience in that area. We've done a bunch of it. And so I think that we are excited that that's going to be a place that we can deploy a lot of capital and deploy in an area where we can have very high expected returns.
spk03: Thanks. I appreciate the answers.
spk06: Thank you. We'll take our next question from Doug Harder with Credit Suisse.
spk08: Thanks. Can you talk about how you're balancing diversification and the benefits of that across all the opportunities you see versus kind of the ability to have scale and kind of be larger in any of those opportunities?
spk02: Yeah, I can start, and then I don't know. Sorry. No, you go ahead, Mark. Yeah, sure. I was just going to say, so it's a very interesting question. There are certain sectors that you have substantially better economics if you have scale. So I think non-QM is a great example, right? If you are – and we went through this back in 2017. When our origination volumes were $30 million a month from our origination partners, it was taking a year to ramp to a deal. So that means you've got to have loans on repo for a year and you're hedging them for a year and securitization market can change a lot. And so now we have much greater volume. We can ramp to deal size much quicker. You have better economics on your transactions. We kind of have a virtuous cycle of being a repeat issuer that we get sort of tighter spreads than sort of new originators. So scale, no question there, is super helpful. And You know, EFC's got to have enough capital, and these acquisitions are going to help us with that. We've got to have enough capital to have scale in all the major businesses, right? So non-scale matters. I think in RTL it matters, too. You've got to be a meaningful takeout for your partners. You've got to have meaningful loan balances to get the best levels from your repo counterparties. Commercial bridge, same thing. We have a lot of repeat... We have a lot of repeat customers, people that have borrowed from us in the past, had a good experience, they come back. You need to have capital to be available when some of your partners have another property they want to buy and you are like-minded with them on the value proposition. I think we have enough. I'm excited, Larry mentioned it, but one thing with Arlington is is we're getting into servicing, right? And servicing has been, it's an interesting sector. It's a sector where our core competence in understanding prepayments as a function of interest rates and loan attributes is going to matter a lot in being able to value and hedge those investments appropriately. And so with Arlington, we're getting scale in that sector. And that's another sector where you need to have scale to be meaningful. So I think you hadn't seen us venture into something like that a couple years ago. And maybe part of the reason was just it was hard to get to scale. Do you have enough capital? So having the bigger capital base is going to be really important because it lets you be scale at a range of things that help you diversify. And the servicing is potentially a huge diversification because that's a negative duration asset. pretty much everything else we have is kind of floating rate, so zero duration or positive duration assets. So that can really help. Servicing is an IO play. Now with distress in the agency market and non-agency market, we have a lot of discount security. So that's a good question. It's something we think about, and I think we have enough scale for all the things that are most of interest to us right now.
spk05: And I would just add, Thanks, Mark. I would just add that diversification for a long time for Ellington Financial has been really important. I mean, we recognize that a lot of our peers are more focused in particular sectors, right, in the mortgage REIT space. I mean, you have obviously commercial versus residential. You've got agency versus non-agency securities versus loans. It's really important to us that we can rotate and be affirmative in terms of how we allocate capital to where we see the best opportunities at each point in time. Now, to do that, obviously, you need to have dry powder. You need to be able to take advantage of liquidity in your portfolio and have sometimes a trading mentality. I think we have all those things. But when you think about how opportunities go in and out and dangers go in and out of all these different sectors. It's been really important to us to be able to kind of dial up and down as we've been doing, you know, with non-QM and as we've been doing recently with our commercial mortgage bridge, where we're, you know, we've been letting that portfolio run down a bit. And then, you know, because we see the opportunity, you know, in the horizon coming. So and again, all helps the fact that we've got a short duration portfolio that's spitting out a lot of cash often in terms of, you know, in the form of principal repayments that can help us maintain that dry pattern, can help us, you know, allocate capital differently in relatively short periods of time compared to what other companies can do. So I think that's been really important to our success. And I think it's going to continue to be really important going forward.
spk08: I appreciate that answer. And then, you know, just you guys have been focused on kind of shorter duration assets. Any change to that, you know, kind of, you know, given where returns are today, would you be willing to kind of take more longer duration assets or do you still like that shorter duration asset?
spk05: Well, I mean, I think, you know, if you look at, it's interesting, right? There's some Longer duration assets like non-QM, you know, that's not a short duration asset. And reverse mortgage loans are not a short duration assets. But, you know, they're securitizable. And now, you know, we've been talking about whole loan sales. I think, you know, those are some very interesting opportunities to, you know, to get good profits, you know, and realize those profits in different ways. So yeah, but in general, I think we intend or inclined to keep duration short, especially seeing how there are opportunities that are pretty visible now that could be coming around the corner, like in a commercial mortgage bridge in distress and distressed opportunities in the reverse mortgage space that Longbridge has been able to take advantage of starting at the end of last year and beginning of this year when it acquired some of those buyout loans that look like are gonna be very profitable and that distressed acquisition of mortgage servicing rights that happened in early July that we think we'll see more opportunities there as well. It's a... It's a sector where there's not a lot of competition, as I'm sure you know.
spk06: Great. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. We'll take our next question from Mikhail Goberman with JMP Securities.
spk01: Hey, guys. Good morning. Most of my questions have already been answered, but if I could just squeeze in one more. If you guys are seeing any M&A-type opportunities outside of the REIT space at the moment, Or are you kind of taking a step back and digesting the two that you've just completed? Thanks.
spk05: Right. Well, we're not looking at any controlling interests. We always have our antenna out there and are, you know, pursuing with various levels of intensity, taking risks. stakes, modest stakes usually in smaller originators. So we still have some, I wouldn't even call it necessarily deals in the pipeline there, but certainly deals that we're exploring. But nothing tremendously immaterial at this point and nothing that would be controlling at this point.
spk01: All right. Thanks, guys. Good luck. Best of luck going forward.
spk06: Thank you. You too. Thank you. We'll take our next question from Eric Hagan with BTIG.
spk09: Hey, thanks. How are we doing, guys? You know, looking at the MS, following up on the MSR here, I'm just curious how big you guys think you can get in that strategy, how much capital you can devote there. You know, we've seen other companies run the paired MSR and MBS strategy. Just wondering how you might run that strategy any differently than the stocks do now. Have you guys even managed that strategy historically at Ellington? even more broadly in any performance results you can share from being an MSR investor in the past? Thank you.
spk05: Sure. Okay, so let's take that one at a time. So in terms of whether we've acquired MSRs in the past, I think, you know, let's not talk about Longbridge for now when we acquired that. That was obviously acquiring as well an MSR business. But the answer is no. This is the first time. that when we close the Arlington transaction, that'll be the first time that we have such an interest in mortgage servicing rights, residential mortgage servicing rights of any substantial size. But as Mark mentioned, this is right up our alley in terms of the prepayment characteristics, which are, of course, the main driver of returns in that. And You know, we'll work with third-party master servicers probably to start with. And, you know, I think that could grow pretty big. The portfolio that we're acquiring, you know, is kind of a, you know, it's at scale. And, you know, one nice thing in that market is that you can bolt on smaller size packages at a lot of times much lower prices. Sometimes the bigger packages trade at higher prices than the smaller packages. But yeah, so I think we do plan to have a little bit of a roll-up strategy there, certainly in the beginning. But I see no reason, as long as, frankly, financing is there, continues to be there at attractive levels to be able to finance the MSRs, that's gonna be key. But the yields that they're trading at, given the risk profile and given the financing costs that are available currently, make it an attractive strategy. It's not a trading strategy, right? So I think just consistent with what I was saying before, it's not going to be, I don't think, a huge part of our portfolio anytime soon, but it's something that I think that we'll continue to add to and diversify returns and, you know, can achieve well into mid-teens returns or not higher on a leveraged basis.
spk02: Yeah, I just wanted to add one thing. I think how we're going to think about it relative to our peer group, we're probably going to take more of a relative value view. So, like, you know, I don't exactly replicate servicing. There's late fees and recapture and float. they're kissing cousins, right? So I think we'll be more focused on relative value. If the I.O. market gets cheap to servicing, you'll see us put capital there. If servicing gets cheap to I.O., then the pendulum swings towards servicing. So I think that's one thing we'll do that others don't do. What's interesting about the opportunity set now is just the way we think about prepayment and the way a lot of our models work is we tend to believe in technology and efficiencies that can make prepayments very fast on larger loans when they get in the money, right? So if you look at like buying servicing in 2021, right? You were buying new production stuff, larger loans, you know, a lot of non-bank, you know, Rocket, UWM, efficient servicers. And so we kind of saw an S curve on those kind of loans that can get very fast when they get in the money. And that turned out to be the case, right? What you have now, though, you have a giant pool of, of loans that are, you know, well over 200 basis points out of the money. So it's more of a turnover play. It's more of a seasonal play. And I think that we just see a little bit better relative value in that market. So that makes it more interesting now than maybe a few years ago. And also, too, just that the banks have pulled back. They're not nearly as big a force in Fannie Freddie origination as they used to be. And those were the – it was Wells Fargo. It was J.P. Morgan. It was Bank of America that from time to time had really lofty servicing valuations because they had cross-sell and all this other stuff. Now it's kind of a non-bank world in the agency space. Valuations have come down. I think it's a good sector for us now. So it's just sort of like it's been this evolution in who's originating mortgages. It's this rate move that you have a big pool of way-out-of-the-money stuff, which we like, and that, you know, just things lined up. And through Arlington, we're able to get to scale pretty quickly.
spk09: Yep. That's a really helpful commentary. Thank you, guys. Thank you.
spk06: Thank you. That was our final question for today. We thank you for participating in the L.A. 2020-2023 Earnings Conference call. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day.
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